An early childhood education program utilizing mothers as instructors within a bilingual-bicultural format, "La Escuelita" serves 8 to 10 families. Twelve to 15 children, ages 2-3, and their mothers, ages 20-40, are involved in the program which treats their culture and language as important factors. Each child's mother serves as a parent-teacher for 8 hours each week. Each mother develops her own written curriculum guides based on the selected curriculum objectives determined by the parent-teachers and the staff on a biweekly basis. Specific curriculum objectives are to: enhance Spanish and English skills in the audial and oral levels; enhance these skills via a Mexican American format; instill at this early age a level of "cultural pride"; develop social skills. The program is evaluated through pre- and posttests administered to the children, observations of the amount of child participation during the daily teaching exercises, an analysis of Spanish-English occurrences in the classroom, and an assessment of the mothers' individual planning based on a comparison between present and previous daily curriculum guides. The program evaluation indicates: a high participation by children during instruction periods; attainment of bilingual-bicultural curriculum objectives; increased independence in planning/implementing the curriculum; an increased confidence in the mothers to provide educational assistance to their children; use of both Spanish and English as mediums of instruction. (NQ)

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